To many, at first glance, it may seem unusual that an Internet-based company valued at $719 billion is receiving a large amount of publicity for opening a small store near their headquarters. On the other hand, when you consider that it’s Amazon – the company that has revolutionized retail with products/services like the Kindle, Prime (in all its incarnations), Fire, and Echo – and the store is debuting a technology that could change the way that we shop in brick-and-mortar stores, this small store could, like so many other Amazon innovations, be a game changer.
Regardless of whether people enjoy shopping or hurry through a store during their lunch break, the basic premise lies in the fact that the bottleneck that wastes time and causes frustration is invariably the checkout process. Previously, there have been minor innovations, such as barcode scanning technology, self-checkout kiosks, and even smart shopping carts, but these solutions have only lessened the problem, instead of eliminating it. First proposed in 2015, the concept behind Amazon Go eliminates the checkout issue by removing the need for checking out.
Understandably, Amazon has been rather tight-lipped regarding the technology that is making this venture happen; however, we do have a basic idea of how it works. Downloading and setting up the app on your smartphone, you simply scan a QR code upon entering the store. From there, the store uses a complex network of shelf sensors (to detect when a product has been removed from the shelf, and whether returned back or not), facial recognition technology (to detect who removed the item), and powerful cameras (to scan the code on the product container). When done shopping, the customer simply leaves the store, triggering the app to use the customer’s info to process the payment by automatically debit his account for the items he takes, sending the receipt to the app.
Earlier smart cart technology, which allows cameras/sensors in the cart to scan products, has been a potential leap forward, but it hasn’t necessarily addressed eliminate the checkout process nor has it automatically synced with an individual’s account. The beauty of Just Walk Out technology is that it offers a way to fully eliminate checkouts without compromise. The computing power required to monitor shelf sensors, recognize customers, analyse camera data, and correlate everything to the individual is a real game changer for the retail industry, as Dilip Kumar, Amazon Go Vice President of technology stated, the idea is to “push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning” to create an “effortless experience for customers.”
The Just Walk Out technology will provide a massive amount of information about how customers shop, purchasing habits, store layout & customer flow, etc., meaning that it would be a massive benefit to the overall consumer goods industry. Still, different people and different cultures shop in different ways, and data only matters if it is relative to the target demographic. Assuring that the correct data is analysed and the correct reaction to the data is effectively communicated, it is important that global brand managers partner with a dedicated, experienced language service provider in order to maximize efficiency and provide the best experience for its customers.
EVS Translations is the ideal single source solution provider to the global consumer goods industry in the era of business intelligence solutions, driven by the evolution of neural machine translation, deep learning, artificial intelligence, and Big Data.
Translating over 50 000 sentences daily into tens of languages for over 25 years now, EVS Translation has the Big Data in-house.
The large in-house talent, in offices across Europe and North America, including web and video engineering-, translation technology-, marketing-, project management- and legal experts, drives performance in language services making it smarter for its clients.
EVS Translations can assist brands from the consumer goods industry in improving their global growth and global customer loyalty by providing solutions, such as: video content engineering and translation solutions, in-store tutorials, in-app chatbots and full online customer support, product packaging, and full marketing campaigns’ localisation.
